WACO, Texas—It’s easy to forget now, easy to explain away as a pause instead of a defining moment.

Three years ago, Baylor was without a home. Three years ago, Baylor’s best hope to stay relevant in the fluid and frenetic world of conference expansion was Conference USA. Or the now defunct Big East. Or going it alone as an independent.

Now look: drive south down I-35, roll up one of those rare hills in Central Texas and see what Art Briles built rise before your eyes. The new $200 million Baylor Stadium hits you that quick, a microcosm of where this program has been—and how quickly it now jumps on you.

What was once a joke of a program and a dead-end job with 14 straight losing seasons, is the new craze in college football. What was once an afterthought when heavyweight Texas was deciding its conference future three years ago—and wasn’t taking Baylor along for the ride—is now the very program poised to revel in the irony of that Bevo-sized arrogance.

Baylor is winning big. Baylor has superstar players. Baylor is ranked in the top 12. Baylor is smack in the middle of the national championship race.

And—isn’t this just a poetic kick in the Longhorn shorts?—Baylor’s coach is the one Texas will covet once this season ends.

“I guess the idea is if you’re going to build something,” Briles says, “it might as well stick out so everyone can see it.”

He was talking about the new stadium. He may as well have been talking about this growing, growling program that has gone from unwanted to unrivaled in the Big 12 in about three years.

Since that first summer of Texas flirting with the Pac-12 (and making decisions on who would and wouldn’t go with), Baylor has more Big 12 victories than the Longhorns. Since that first summer. Baylor has a Heisman Trophy winner and is now on its third record-setting quarterback from the state of Texas the Longhorns failed to recruit.

Robert Griffin III was so good and so dynamic in Briles’ wide-open offense, he won the Heisman despite the program’s lack of name recognition. Nick Florence came along a year later and rewrote the school’s record books.

And now we give you Bryce Petty, the fourth-year junior who was told by Briles three years ago (see how everything lines up?) that he had his quarterback until 2013. So Petty waited his turn, got his opportunity and is putting together a season for the ages.

He’s also zeroing in on accomplishing what no other Baylor quarterback has done: lead the Bears to the Big 12 Championship—and maybe much more.

This, of course, should come as no surprise. It was Briles, the longtime Texas high school coach, who took over his alma mater Stephenville High School, turned around the program and led it to four state championships.

It was Briles who took over a moribund Houston program, which was 0-11 the season before he arrived in 2002, and led the Cougars to a Conference USA championship and four bowl appearances.

He arrived at Baylor in 2008, and told everyone who would listen – including elite recruits Griffin and All-American wideout Kendall Wright – they needed faith, hope and vision. Faith in themselves, hope they could make a difference, and vision to see if done right, Baylor could be the perfect place.

“I wanted mavericks,” Briles said. “Guys who would walk down a path no one had ever been down. It was out there if you wanted to go get it.”

That’s just what they’ve done, turning the world’s largest Baptist university—but strictly regional sports entity—into a booming national sports brand. What better way to explain the presence of Baylor in college sports than to draw a picture with Nike.

Yes, Nike; the global sports apparel giant that had a significant hand in elevating Oregon—once a Pac-10 bottom feeder—to the elite level of college sports. Just this past year, Nike moved Baylor to its upper-tier of marketing.

Now it’s Baylor running fast and zooming around in those funky uniforms. Now it’s Baylor many are calling the Oregon of the southwest.

“I like to think Oregon,” Briles says, “is the Baylor of the Northwest.”

That’s how you win big, everyone. You think big, you act big and everyone eventually believes. Then it’s contagious.

When Briles arrived in Waco in 2008, he said he had seven players who were legit Big 12 athletes. Now he says he has a roster full of them.

There are more potential first round NFL draft picks on the Baylor offense than there are on the Texas roster. There’s tailback Lache Seastrunk, guard Cyril Richardson, left tackle Spencer Drango, wideout Antwan Goodley and Petty.

Of all the wild and unthinkable offensive numbers created by this edition of the Briles’ machine, nothing stands out more than Petty’s 14.87 average yards per pass attempt. The number is monstrous.

The NCAA doesn’t have single season yards per attempt records, but Griffin’s 10.68 yards per attempt in 2011 was the best in FBS since at least 2000. Any move of percentage points (not full points) is significant—and Petty is more than four full points ahead of Griffin’s number.

And just to stick it to Texas one more time—since, you know, Texas tried to stick to Baylor three years ago—the Longhorns’ current yards per attempt for quarterbacks David Ash and Case McCoy is less than half (7.22) Petty’s number.

“Everybody was worried about our new quarterback,” Seastrunk said. “Really? You would think people would get it by now.”

If not, they will soon enough.

That’s one-time castoff Baylor, forcing everyone to take notice. That’s longtime nobody Baylor, acting and playing like the somebody Briles always knew they could be.

We’re nearly a full year from the opening of the new Baylor Stadium on the banks of the Brazos River, and already the stadium, field and bridge leading the stadium have secured naming rights. They’ve sold six founders suites at $10 million each, 39 premium suites at $1-3 million each, and 80 loge boxes and 1,200 club seats are sold out.

Meanwhile, in the here and now, Baylor is unbeaten and if all goes as planned, will be playing host to—seriously, how perfect is this? – Texas on Dec. 7 to win the Big 12 and, who knows, maybe a spot in the biggest game of all.

“This is what Art has created,” McCaw said. “He has turned Baylor into a destination job.”